The row over the Government’s handling of the grooming gangs crisis deepened last night, amid claims that Sir Keir Starmer blames Home Secretary Yvette Cooper for Labour’s faltering response.
No 10 insiders said her department failed to alert Downing Street when calls for a new Home Office-led inquiry were first raised.
That led to ministers refusing a new full-scale national investigation, only for Ms Cooper to last week announce a series of local probes into the scale of the sexual exploitation of young women.
The move comes as the Tories piled on the pressure for a full inquiry into the ‘horrific rape gangs scandal’ by unveiling plans for a second Commons vote on the issue, barely ten days after Labour overwhelmingly voted down a previous Conservative bid for a new investigation.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp announced last night that his party would table a fresh amendment to the Government’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.
He said: ‘We are going to give Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs another chance to do right by the victims of the horrific rape gangs scandal.’
The move comes after The Mail on Sunday was told by No 10 insiders of a rift with the Home Office over the response to the controversy in recent weeks.
It has been claimed that Sir Keir Starmer blames Home Secretary Yvette Cooper for Labour’s faltering response to the grooming gangs crisis
Ms Cooper announced a series of local probes into the scale of the sexual exploitation of young women earlier this week
One source claimed that if Downing Street had been aware that Oldham Council was appealing for a new Government-led inquiry in its local area, it would not have been told ‘no’.
But a government source last night hit back at claims of a rift, saying: ‘This is absolute nonsense. The PM and his team have been working very closely with the Home Secretary and the safeguarding minister [Jess Phillips] to take the action needed to tackle evil grooming gangs and better protect children.
‘Nothing is more important than getting justice for victims.
‘Across government, we will work to deliver the change needed after 14 years of inaction from the Tories.’
Just two days ago, tensions between ministers boiled over after Culture Minister Chris Bryant admitted that interventions by billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk had sparked further debate about the grooming gangs issue.
Mr Musk had used his social media platform X to lambast the Government and call for a fresh national statutory inquiry.
But in a pointed rebuke to Mr Bryant, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said: ‘We are not a Government that governs by social media, we govern for the real world.’
Mr Philp added: ‘Labour is more interested in fighting each other than fixing the issue.’
